Quotes About Responsibility

To the bird watcher, the suburbanite who derives joy from birds in his garden, the hunter, the fisherman or the explorer of wild regions, anything that destroys the wildlife of an area for even a single year has deprived him of pleasure to which he has a legitimate right.

Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species—man—acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world.

Although man's record as a steward of the natural resources of the earth has been a discouraging one, there has long been a certain comfort in the belief that the sea, at least, was inviolate, beyond man's ability to change and to despoil. But this belief, unfortunately, has proved to be naïve.

Carson's writing initiated a transformation in the relationship between humans and the natural world and stirred an awakening of public environmental consciousness. It

We are rightly appalled by the genetic effects of radiation; how then, can we be indifferent to the same effect in chemicals that we disseminate widely in our environment?

As Albert Schweitzer has said, "Man can hardly even recognize the devils of his own creation.

But man is part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.

The obligation to endure gives us the right to know.

In her rooms, as in ours, people live under great pressure. Time bears down upon us. The world is raging, and we have each of us but a tiny sphere of activity.

They were tricky, those demons. Could they be trusted? Of course they could be trusted. She'd created them. She owned them. They wouldn't lead her astray.

Do you still Kill Gerbils?

Children frighten me. I mean, I appreciate them on a cute aesthetic level, but they're very demanding and unreasonable creatures and often smell funny.

She told me if I clean all the ashes out of the grate, then I'll be able to help my sisters get ready for the ball.

But the universe doesn't decide what's right or not right. You do.

The scariest thing for non-Jewish Americans in talking about Palestinian self-determination is the fear of being or sounding anti-Semitic. The people of Israel are suffering, and Jewish people have a long history of oppression. We still have some responsibility for that, but I think it's important to draw a firm distinction between the policies of Israel, as a state, and Jewish people. That's kind of a no-brainer, but there is very strong pressure to conflate the two.

I never understood how much responsability came with love.

If a Jew tell a lie because the truth of his faith cannot be tolerated by those around him, shouldn't one then prosecute the world rather than the Jew?

And because history cared not at all if the negligent left its missives unread, she insisted on caring.

So said the old man: As a boy I gathered fruit from the trees planted by my forebears. Am I not, then, required to plant the trees that will sustain my grandchildren?

There is no divine judge. So we must supply for ourselves notions of good and ill.

And to this I add: there is no divine intervention. There is no divine judge. So we must supply for ourselves notions of good and ill. This is the purview and millstone of the philosophe.

For the sake of all the others who are like you, but less strong and less gifted perhaps, many of them, it's up to you to have the courage to make good.

What a man dares to do, he should dare to confess- unless he is a coward.

Those who celebrate failure will not be around to help today's students celebrate their jobs flipping burgers...Someone has to tell children if they are behind, and lay out a plan of attack to help them catch up.